Proving that the BBC far from limits itself to providing exclusive content to just one major American online streamer within its home UK market, the commercial division BBC Worldwide have dispatched a number of their most high-profile shows to Amazon’s newly-branded Prime Instant Video platform.
Along with high-profile current programming most prominently including Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Call the Midwife, the BBC have also announced a number of classic comedies such as Only Fools and Horses, The Office, and the Blackadder franchise, amongst others, including more recently-ended programming including Life on Mars.
The non-exclusive deal between the online retailers and the region’s leading public broadcaster will be seen as a huge launching boost to the Amazon Prime Instant platform who are looking to establish themselves as their own brand after taking over branding from their purchased property LoveFilm.
Whether this transition into an Amazon brand will prove as successful as hoped remains to be seen, but the addition of such high-profile dramas and comedy series to a slate boasting over 15,000 movies and TV shows for subscribers. In competition with Netflix, a key selling point for the in-house subscription is to also provide unlimited next-day delivery for Amazon online retail products and unlimited borrowing of Kindle books, complete at a fixed annual rate of £79.
Also looking to introduce their own-brand ‘Fire TV’ set-top box (that allegedly also functions as a games console and in power is three times greater overall than Google Chromecast and Apple TV), Amazon’s efforts to sell and deliver on their own products as well as everyone else’s is one which they hope will carry on in the form of the latter, and if they succeed you wouldn’t need to be a time lord or a detective to figure out why…
